


be my brave self more often

by staygame (sungjae)



Category: Oh My Girl (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, eSports
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 00:21:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16545164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sungjae/pseuds/staygame
Summary: Hyojung has a level 13 LoL account and a big crush. These are both problems.





	be my brave self more often

**Author's Note:**

> the prompt i claimed was "college sports au!" so naturally i took that to mean...........gratuitous esports au....
> 
> it took months but i was determined to finish this!!! title from hovvdy's "brave"

On the first day of the two-week break before playoffs, Yewon breaks her wrist.

"Ice skating?" Mihyun croaks out. "Who told you that you could ice skate when you should be practicing for playoffs?"

"Stop fussing, you're going to scare the other patients," Hyojung says. Yewon shoots her a grateful look.

She'd called Hyojung first. Hyojung spent five seconds basking in this, noting that her campaign to be the mom friend had not been for nothing, before her concern for Yewon kicked in and she dropped everything to head to the hospital. 

Hyojung texted the group chat from the bus.

 **hyojung** : yewonnie is in the hospital  
**hyojung** : i'll send the address  
**hyojung** : she's 

She hit send too soon, shit.

 **seunghee** : SHE'S DEAD?  
**hyojung** : fine  
**hyojung** : she's fine  
**shiah** : you should've led with that!!!

When Hyojung arrived at the hospital, she was met by Yewon's best friend, Dayoung, who waved her over like they were meeting for brunch and not over someone's broken bone. "They'll be putting the cast on soon," Dayoung explained, leading Hyojung through labyrinthine hospital hallways until they ended up at Yewon's bed in the emergency room. 

"Unni, you-" Yewon had started to say, but the rest of it was swept up into Hyojung's arms as she hugged Yewon, careful to avoid the bandaged wrist. 

The rest of their friends arrived not long after. Jiho and Shiah first, both carrying pink balloons they'd acquired from the gift shop with the words _It's a girl!_ in bubbly letters written on them, followed by Seunghee, Yoobin, and Mihyun. They'd each peppered Yewon with so many coos of sympathy and affection that one of the nurses poked her head behind the curtain to remind them that other patients were in the room. 

Of course, when the implications of what Yewon's broken wrist meant began to sink in, the mood took an obvious turn for the worse. 

"Are you sure she can't play anyway?" Hyojung asks Jiho, the team's captain. 

"I doubt it," Jiho says and covers her face with her hands. "It's her right arm, she'll need it for the mouse." 

"I can't believe she would do this," Mihyun wails. 

Yewon makes a little coughing sound. "I'm right here, you know." 

"You're dead to me," Mihyun says under her breath.

Shiah holds up her arms in the shape of an X, cutting Mihyun off. "It's just a game! She didn't mean to break her wrist." 

"We'll figure something out," Yoobin says in a far more reasonable tone. "We have a substitute player, don't we?"

It's not until six pairs of eyes each slowly turn on Hyojung that she realizes, with a sinking feeling in her stomach, that _she_ is the substitute. "Oh no," she says. 

"Dead to me," Mihyun whispers again. 

 

 

The Ehwa Womans University Intramural League of Legends Association is hardly the most popular club on campus. Hyojung hadn't even known they had esports clubs until her second year, when Mihyun joined a team and dragged her along to one of their matches. In a too-warm computer lab in one of the education buildings, Hyojung watched the game on a smart board while a row of girls sat with their backs to the screen, shouting over each other in terms that Hyojung didn't recognize. In the first game, Mihyun (summoner name: Mimi) had played some gruff, shirtless guy who blasted his enemies with a water gun. Her job as a jungler, as far as Hyojung could tell, mostly consisted of running around the lush green terrain to shoot at large rocks and showing up when a bunch of champions were fighting each other.

None of it made any sense to Hyojung and it wasn't until Mihyun's team was firing up the enemy's base that she was sure they were going to win, but she had fun watching it all the same. During the next game, Mihyun switched to a female character, a scantily clad woman carrying a spear that turned into an elegant black cat at random. It took a lot longer the second time around, but Mihyun's team won this game too.

"We're the best team in the association," Mihyun told Hyojung smugly after the game. She wrapped an arm around the shoulders of a petite girl with bangs and a round, soft face. "Mostly because we have the best ADC."

The other girl stuck out her hand, grinning. "She's just saying that. I'm Hyun Seunghee."

Hyojung went home that night and downloaded LoL, per Mihyun's request. It never stuck—there was too much going on all over the screen, too many things to keep track of, and Hyojung's hand-eye coordination was less than ideal. On her level 13 account, Hyojung still only has two summoners on her friends list, Mimi and SeungHee. 

At the end of the school year, the captain of another team, Jeon Somin, quit, along with most of Mihyun's team.

"Overwatch," Mihyun complained. "I mean, it's fun, but like, it'll never be spectator friendly." 

The two teams folded into one. Kim Jiho in top lane, Mihyun in the jungle, Bae Yoobin from one of Hyojung's classes in mid, Seunghee as ADC, and Shin Hyejin playing support. Officially, they still needed one more member. They were required, as per a rule book lost in a pile of other rule books for other sports in the intramural office, to have a minimum six-woman roster, with at least one substitute player. When Mihyun had asked, Hyojung saw no reason to turn her down. It's not like she'd ever have to play, and besides, this way she could further pad the extracurricular section of her resume. 

At the start of the next school year, the team, renamed to Oh My Girl by then (apparently a riff on some Chinese team's name), had picked up freshman Choi Yewon to replace Hyejin. Hyojung began tagging along to team practices more frequently. They were more fun than her friends in the classical guitar society and certainly more fun than the volunteer club. She'd picked up on a few things by now—different champions, stealing baron, something called wave control?—but she still didn't understand much, even as she rooted for her friends.

It didn't matter, though, because she was never supposed to _actually_ play.

 

 

Unsurprisingly, the nurse kicks them out of the room for being too noisy. They leave behind the balloons and reconvene in the hospital cafeteria over banana milks and canned Americanos, but Hyojung's stomach is too upset to think about consuming anything. 

"Why not Shiah?" she asks.

If Hyojung is Oh My Girl's official sixth member, then Shiah is their unofficial seventh. She's only a gold player, but at least she plays, which is more than can be said for Hyojung.

Shiah shakes her head apologetically. "I would, I really would, but we have our dance team show coming up soon and Momo would literally kill me if I bailed on any practice."

"Face it, you're our only hope," Jiho say, in the same tone that someone might say _you have genital warts_.

Hyojung lets her head thump down against the table. It smells like cleaning solution and there's a patch of something sticky under her cheek, but she can't bear the idea of facing her friends. "Some hope," she mumbles.

"What level is your account again?" Yoobin asks, sipping on her banana milk.

"Thirteen."

"Oh my god," Seunghee says, in English for effect. "But, you've been watching us play for like, two years, right? Does that not count for anything?"

"You're underestimating how little I actually understand," Hyojung says.

"This just means we have our work cut out for us," Yoobin says. Without having to look, Hyojung knows that she's probably pumped her fist in the air, a fighting gesture, because Yoobin is too kind to be totally hopeless.

Mihyun laughs. "Speaking of underestimating."

"If I said I was busy with guitar society, would you believe me?" Hyojung asks. 

There are two weeks until Oh My Girl plays Twice. Two short, puny weeks for Hyojung to learn how to play support well enough not to completely sabotage OMG's chances to proceed in playoffs and disappoint her friends that have been working towards this for years now.

For a fleeting moment, Hyojung wonders if she could somehow graduate early within the next two weeks. Someone, probably Shiah based on the size of the palm against her shoulder blade, pats Hyojung on the back.

 

 

The duty to teach Hyojung how to play support largely falls on Seunghee. "If she just follows you around healing you, it's not like she can fuck up anywhere else on the map," Mihyun rationalized. 

"Plus you'll need the most synergy," Jiho added.

So the next day, after her class, Hyojung meets Seunghee at her apartment. She lives with another music student Seunghee, though this one is much more quiet, only giving Hyojung a brief nod as they pass on the way to her Seunghee's bedroom. 

"You can have the desktop," Seunghee says, setting down a chair from the kitchen next to her fancy gaming chair. She has to shove some sheet music and empty yogurt bottles aside to make space for her laptop.

It's the first time that Hyojung has seen Seunghee's room, in person at least. She'd found out last year that Seunghee streams sometimes and she'd tuned into one of her broadcasts, curious. Seunghee turned out to be no different on camera than she was in real life—she never held back her sarcasm when faced when stupid teammates, she sang along to songs while she was in queue, and the more excited she got, the louder she got. It was endearing enough that Hyojung sat through two hours of the stream before realizing it was almost midnight and she hadn't even started her homework yet. 

She's never told anyone, especially not Seunghee, that she still watches her stream sometimes. It's just background noise, like watching _I Live Alone_ , except it's her friend that she's watching and there's nothing weird about that. 

The side of the room that's visible on webcam is cleaner than the rest. Hyojung recognizes the shelf with LoL plushes and underneath it, a small piece of poster paper with her name, ♥ Hyun Seunghee ♥, spelled out in glittery letters. It'd been a gift from a fan and Seunghee teared up during that stream, thanking her viewers for their support. 

Maybe, Hyojung concedes, it's a little weird. 

"I'm going to start you off with a few co-op games," Seunghee says. "Before you play against any real people."

Seunghee tells her to pick Ashe, a half-naked woman who uses a bow and arrow. In the first five minutes, Hyojung walks under the turret twice ("Stay behind your minions!" Seunghee shouts), resulting in her death in one of these instances, and runs into the river's walls more times than she can count. Even the mouse feels foreign under her palm and her fingers can't seem to find the right letters on the keyboard when she needs them. It takes more than half an hour for them to beat a bunch of AI and that's with Seunghee racking up over a dozen kills by the end of it. 

There is a long silence as the game flashes its _VICTORY_ screen. Hyojung waits for Seunghee to tell her she's hopeless or that her five-year-old cousin could play better than Hyojung, but what Seunghee finally says is just, "It could be worse." 

"Like, on a scale of zero to ten, where ten is Faker and zero is no hands?" Hyojung asks. 

"Maybe a one? One and a half?" Seunghee says. 

Hyojung lets out a noise that's halfway between a wail and her coughing up the lump forming in her throat. "I'm really sorry, I know how important this is to you guys and it's going to be all my fault if you lose." 

"Hey," Seunghee says, placing a hand over Hyojung's. Her palm is warm and a little damp with sweat. "It's not your fault. It's not anyone's fault, things happen." Her mouth twists into a smug grin. "We're going to be so good, it won't even matter if you suck." 

They play two more co-op games and win both before the thirty minute mark, which Hyojung counts as a success. She plays Ashe again and then tries out Soraka, a goat woman who throws out- "Is that a banana?"

"Don't underestimate the banana!" Seunghee laughs. 

Playing Soraka mostly consists of chasing Seunghee around, trying to heal her champion even though she never seems to take any damage, flitting around the map and throwing out flurries of feathers that take enemy champions down before Hyojung even registers what's going on. They're about to queue up for another when Oh Seunghee knocks on the door and politely requests they wrap it up for the night. It's somehow after eleven without Hyojung even noticing. 

Later, Hyojung falls asleep that night with the sounds of tinkling gold ringing in her ears and a lingering warmth, a phantom touch of Seunghee's hand against hers. 

 

 

They both have early classes the next day, so it's lunchtime when Hyojung comes over. Seunghee answers the door with her phone cradled under one ear, waving her free hand in a vague gesture that Hyojung doesn't understand.

"Do you want any pizza?" Seunghee asks, holding her phone away from her mouth. 

"Cheese, please."

"And a cheese pizza, thank you! The address is-"

Hyojung takes her shoes and coat off as Seunghee finishes the order. It's the coldest day of the season so far, Hyojung's cheeks pink and wind-chapped from the walk, but inside the apartment it's cozy. Seunghee is wearing an oversized Ewha sweatshirt that says _College of Music_ across the chest and it hangs down past the hem of her shorts. When Seunghee says, "The food will be here in twenty minutes," Hyojung realizes she's been staring at the soft curve of Seunghee's thighs and she looks away, blinking. 

While they wait, Seunghee joins Hyojung on the couch, pulling up videos of people showing off places to ward. "I'll tell you where to put them when we're playing," Seunghee explains, "but it'll be good for you to know where the enemy will usually have wards or if you're alone in lane or something."

"You're going to leave me alone?" Hyojung asks, horrified. 

"I mean, I will try not to, but what if I die in a teamfight or something?" 

Hyojung shakes her head. "Then I will go back to base and wait until you're alive again." 

This makes Seunghee laugh, a shrill noise of surprise. "You can't do that! What if mid needs help?" 

"Like I could help anyone else," Hyojung says. 

"You just wait," Seunghee says, cueing up another video for them to watch. "By the end of these two weeks, you'll be in plat." 

"Is that better than gold?" 

Seunghee gives her a sideways look, eyebrow arching. "Really?" 

"Hey, how should I know?" 

Hyojung doesn't leave that night until they've gotten in almost eight hours of practice. Seunghee makes her play against real people, though Seunghee is kind enough to play on her silver 3 smurf account so Hyojung isn't too outclassed. It's still terrifying—real players actually aim spells at her and appear out of nowhere from the jungle and expend more energy trying to chase them down. In their first game, Hyojung dies with her flash up within four minutes of minions spawning, but at least Seunghee is able to turn it into a kill. 

"I'm avenging your death," she says, turning quickly to shoot Hyojung a grin. 

They win two, through no effort of Hyojung's, and lose three more. 

In the doorway, while Hyojung loops her scarf around her neck and prepares for the walk back to her own apartment, Seunghee asks, "Do you think you're getting it more now? The game, I mean."

Hyojung considers this. She's starting to understand that some objectives are worth giving up if it means your entire team will die to defend them, that getting baron can be a Big Deal, and that she can't stand at the tower while Seunghee is farming minions up the lane if she means to support her, but everything else? There's so many champions, each with their own kits, so many cooldowns and item names and decisions to be made on instinct that Hyojung feels at any given point like her brain might just explode. She's not sure where that leaves her. "Maybe? I hope so," Hyojung says, unable to stop the faint disappointment from creeping into her voice. 

"It'll work out," Seunghee says and she doesn't sound all that sure herself, but she adds, "Like I said, I'll carry us to victory."

"That's what I'm counting on," Hyojung says, forcing a smile.

 

 

 

"New tactic," Seunghee says when she calls Hyojung a few days later. 

Hyojung had been in the middle of an afternoon nap when her phone rang and she's now half-dazed, squinting down at the screen. "What's the tactic?"

"We work on your hand-eye coordination without using computers."

Maybe it's because she's still a little asleep, but Hyojung's mind goes R-rated before she can stop it. She is sure that _that_ is not what Seunghee meant. "Uh, like what?" 

"I have two vouchers for the arcade," Seunghee says. "Do you want to come with me?" 

"That sounds fun. I just woke up, though. I need to get ready." 

There's a noise on the other end of the line that Hyojung recognizes as a barista calling out orders and she imagines Seunghee waiting for an Americano, maybe wearing her Ewha sweatshirt again, sleeves hanging down past her knuckles. It's another moment before Seunghee answers. "Good! It's near the restaurant where Jiho and Mihyun had that drinking competition, do you remember? I'll send you the address." 

When Hyojung meets her an hour later, Seunghee is not wearing her Ewha sweatshirt, but an oversized coat and a bright yellow scarf, the color of mid-summer sunshine. She perks up when she sees Hyojung, waving the vouchers in her direction. 

"Just so you know, I'm also highly skilled at shooting games," Seunghee brags. 

Except Seunghee loses three rounds in a row of the first shooting game they play, the two of them squealing and shouting, "Die!" at each other. They both kind of suck and Hyojung's aim is almost as bad as it is with a mouse, but she gets lucky with the characters she chooses. 

"It's rigged," Seunghee complains, pocketing the toy gun into the game's holster. "Let's play air hockey." 

Sometime in the middle of getting her ass kicked at air hockey and swinging her fist as hard as she can at a punching bag, it occurs to Hyojung that these last few days have been the most time she's spent together with Seunghee, just the two of them, in years of being friends. At first, Seunghee was only a friend-of-a-friend, connected to Hyojung only through Mihyun. When Hyojung started spending more time with the LoL team, it was always in groups—shopping with Mihyun and Jiho, eating jokbal with Seunghee and Yubin, going to the gym with Shiah and Yewon. It took a year of friendship, a year of Hyojung showing up to sit at the back of practices, a textbook propped up on her knees that went neglected more often than not, a year of group dinners where everyone reached over each other to reach side dishes and extended bites on chopsticks for others to try, for Hyojung to feel content in the fact that they actually wanted to spend time around her. 

It also happened to be right around a year of knowing Seunghee that Hyojung's crush began to develop. Seunghee was bold in a way that Hyojung wasn't, obnoxious at times but always paired with a genuine sweetness that could disarm anyone. She had a habit of striking up conversations with ahjummas running the street food carts and not for the free food she'd inevitably receive, though it was a perk, but just because she missed her own grandmothers and she wanted to talk. She never seemed to lack in energy, even when she stayed up late streaming or when she was preparing for a music department performance. Everything about Seunghee was larger-than-life in a tiny package and Hyojung loved the feeling of being caught in her orbit, warmed by the light that Seunghee radiated.

The only problem with that was Jung Soyeon, Seunghee's girlfriend at the time. Jung Soyeon was another music student with her own sunny disposition, a bright smile perfectly complemented by a lopsided dimple. The first time that Hyojung saw them together, running into them outside of a campus cafe, just so happened to be the first time that Hyojung's feelings made themselves known with a sinking feeling in her chest, like her heart was being dragged down to her feet all at once. Soyeon's dyed blonde hair was braided into a crown at the top of her head and she looked very much like a Disney princess, if Disney princesses held hands with other girls. 

"This is Jung Soyeon," Seunghee said, "she's a third year like you." 

Soyeon smiled amiably and Hyojung suppressed the urge to smack the iced coffee out of her hands. 

Instead, she smiled back, just as pleasant, and said, "It's nice to meet you. I'm one of Seunghee's friends, Hyojung."

"Oh!" Soyeon nodded as recognition came to her. "You're in the video game club, right?" 

"Well, not really. I'm just there for moral support," Hyojung said. 

"And she's great at moral support!" Seunghee insisted. 

They dated for a month and a half before breaking up, quietly and mutually. If Hyojung was as brave as Seunghee or as competitive as Jiho or as honest as Shiah, she might've made her move then. But she wasn't them, and she didn't. 

"Hey," Seunghee says, a nudge of her elbow knocking Hyojung out of her thoughts. She's carrying the gudetama plushie that had taken 6,000 won to retrieve from the claw machine, held to her chest like a bouquet of flowers. "Do you want to get some food?" 

They eat on the steps of a hotel, plates of dumplings and tteokbokki from the street vendors perched precariously on their knees. The air outside is verging on too chilly, but the food is hot in her lap and Hyojung had worked up a sweat after three DDR matches anyway. 

"How did you start playing LoL anyway?" Hyojung asks. "Were you always good?"

Seunghee sucks in a breath around her dumpling, letting out a scoffing _ha!_ noise. "I was mostly friends with boys in high school, you know how it goes," she begins to explain when her mouth is less full. As a fellow closeted lesbian in high school, Hyojung does indeed know how it goes. "They started playing LoL and so, naturally, I had to play too. We were all bad at first. They didn't really stick with it, but I don't know. I kind of really loved it. I played support at first because, like, literally every girl does. But I kept playing with these ADCs that were so, _so_ bad and I started thinking that I could do better. And it turns out that I could."

"That's nice," Hyojung says, meaning it sincerely. "I've always thought you guys were really cool. I've never been good at anything like you are."

"Are you kidding me? You have such a beautiful voice." Hyojung looks down at her knees and at the bowl of tteokbokki, her face red. "And you're a really good friend. I don't think our team would function without you, I'm serious."

"Thank you."

Seunghee leans in, bumping her shoulder against Hyojung's. "You're welcome." Her bangs are wind-swept, her nose pink at the tip, and Hyojung wishes this were a date and not just a detour in the time they're being made to spend together. They'll go back to plain old friendship after Hyojung's training montage ends. 

As Hyojung stabs a skewer into a rice cake, a fleeting thought crosses her mind. If by some miracle they don't lose and Hyojung doesn't ruin their chances, maybe Seunghee will like her then.

 

 

"What are the three things I taught you on our first day?" 

Hyojung, who had previously been concentrating very hard on not missing the tribrush with her ward, freezes. Her ward goes just slightly askew from where she'd intended to place it, but, thankfully, still falls within the shaded area. Despite her conversational tone, when Hyojung pans her camera down to bot lane, Seunghee is in the middle of trying to chase down the enemy support. Nami ducks into a bush, but Seunghee as Jinx is fast on her heels. Or fins, or wherever it is that Nami wears boots. 

"Don't attack minions?" Hyojung asks. 

The _enemy has been slain_ announcement echoes out, tinny and muffled through Seunghee's headset and at full volume on Hyojung's desktop. As her champion safely recalls, Seunghee turns to look at Hyojung.

"Okay, four things then." 

Hyojung racks her brain. "Always carry a control ward, look at the minimap, and don't stand back under the turret when you're farming?" 

The look Seunghee gives her makes Hyojung feel like she just got an A+ back on a pop quiz, a fierce nod of approval. "That's right. If you do those four things, we'll definitely win our scrims tomorrow." 

"Definitely is a strong word," Hyojung says. She buys a pair of boots for her champion and a control ward, then another control ward with her leftover gold. This might be the only part that Hyojung has down to reflex by now. "You might want to reconsider your use of that word." 

"DIA sucks," Seunghee says dismissively. 

"If you say so."

 

Their scrim partners are DIA, the last team that Oh My Girl had beaten to get their second place record in the regular season. It's not an official match, so they each play at home, or in Hyojung's case, at Seunghee's.

"So, DIA's not bad but they pretty much only have their mid going for them," Mihyun says. There's a crunching noise coming from her microphone. Hyojung pulls one side of her headset away from her ear. "That makes them really easy to exploit."

"I know we haven't played together in a while, but we're going to do fine. Remember, we're not scared of them."

Hyojung isn't sure if the pep talk is more for the team's benefit or for hers, but it does little to calm her nerves. It's the first time any of the other girls will see her play after a week of practice and Hyojung has no idea how high their expectations are. 

In the chat, the DIA jungler, Huihyeon, types _gl hf ♥_ and their ADC, Yebin, follows it up with a _Yoobin fighting!_

Yoobin types back, _Yebin fighting!_ , and Seunghee clicks her tongue. "Consorting with the enemy, Bae Yoobin."

They lose the first game. It's not a total defeat—things had been pretty even for the first 20 or so minutes, with most of the deaths on Hyojung while Jiho kept Jooeun pushed under the blue side turret, gaining a sizeable CS lead in the top lane. At 25 minutes, Seunghee and Hyojung roamed up the midlane to help push and the whole enemy team descended on them from a dark part of the jungle. Huihyeon's Xin Zhao did something to Hyojung that resulted in a gray screen before Hyojung could even fumble around for her flash. From there, DIA rotated to take the newly spawned infernal drake, Mihyun died trying to contest it, and though they held out for another 15 minutes, it was the beginning of the end. 

As the nexus falls, the voice chat is quiet aside from the echoey announcement of _DEFEAT_. Hyojung clicks out of the post-game lobby quickly, not wanting to dwell on KDA. 

"Well, that sucked," Mihyun finally says. 

Seunghee and Mihyun talk strategy for a minute, debating whether or not to ban Xin Zhao or if it's worth Mihyun taking it first pick. "They weren't as focused on mid as usual," Jiho says. "I hope they don't have any more surprises."

"Stay positive!" Yoobin says cheerfully.

"That's one of Lux's voice lines," Seunghee explains, pulling the microphone away from her face. Her tone is also cheerful, though Hyojung doesn't miss the undercurrent of annoyance, bordering on gruff. She's cycling through one of her runes pages absentmindedly, not looking at Hyojung. 

Hyojung opens her mouth to say something, maybe an apology. Instead she finds a page on Naver with all of Lux's voice lines and reads through them, one by one, drowning out the strategizing the other girls are doing. _"Take courage in the light!"_

Out of four games, they lose three. The last one ends in 28 minutes and Hyojung has twice the number of deaths as she does assists. 

Even Yoobin sounds despondent when she says, "We still have five days left to practice, so we can't get our hopes up now." 

Seunghee takes off her headset without responding. It clatters against the desk with a sound that makes Hyojung flinch. 

"I'm sorry," Hyojung says. "It's my fault."

"It's not your fault," Seunghee says. Her mouth is a thin line, lips pursed. "Stop saying that. If it's anyone's fault, it's Yewon's, but it's not even really her fault either." 

"But you're not going to win because of me," Hyojung says. 

"You don't think I know that?" Seunghee says, raising her voice. "I know we're going to lose. We'd might as well play 4v5." 

And Hyojung flinches again, but it's not guilt she's feeling bubbling up in the pit of her stomach now. It's the frustration of being called shitty names by other players taunting her for the fail flash into a wall, the lingering bitterness over the way her friends use game terms like a secret language, the despair of a stupid crush. When she pushes herself away from the desk, the legs of her chair squeak across the floor. "I'm trying my best, okay? You guys are the ones who asked me to fill in." 

"Well, that was our mistake," Seunghee says, her arms folding over her chest. 

"Fine, then I won't be your mistake anymore."

"Fine! Good!"

"Good luck with your four-person team," Hyojung says, and storms out before Seunghee can get the last word in. 

 

 

"I've always thought League was a pretty toxic game," Yewon says the next day, patting Hyojung's arm. 

Dayoung nods emphatically. "The first time I played, someone said my mom was a dog and that I would die alone. And it was only against bots."

Hyojung hasn't talked to any of her teammates since last night. There's been a few supportive texts from Yoobin and one from Shiah, who must've heard about their losses, but they've all gone unread. Instead, Hyojung texted Yewon, the only friend she has left who might understand the situation, asking to meet up at lunchtime. 

"I'm sure no one meant to hurt your feelings," Yewon says. Dayoung rests her own hand Yewon's cast and Hyojung feels a little like she should hold Dayoung's arm to complete the circle, as though they're going to join hands for a prayer. "People say things in the heat of the moment. You wouldn't believe some of the things Jiho unnie has said to me."

"I'm not really upset about that," Hyojung says. She lets out a frustrated sigh. "I'm upset about Seunghee."

"Why her in particular?" Yewon asks.

The thing is—no one knows about her crush. Hyojung doesn't generally make a habit out of talking about her hardships. The little stuff, like particularly rough critiques and how she got cut off in line by a businessman on a cell phone at the cafe, yes. The big things, the problems that keep her up at night, not so much. Last year when she had the flu, Hyojung didn't tell anyone until she'd needed someone to pick her up from the hospital. She's the oldest of her friends and the most responsible among them, which means she is the one who gets to worry and not the one who others worry about. 

So Hyojung doesn't say _because I like her and she was a dick_. She just shrugs, crumpling an abandoned straw wrapper in her fist. .

"Games aside, I hate seeing the unnies fighting," Yewon says, the corners of her mouth turning down into the beginning of a pout. "I hope you guys make up soon."

 

 

By the end of the day, Hyojung has stopped noticing the persistent notifications from unread texts, tuned out like the background music playing in the cafe where she's trying to work. Still, there's one notification that blinks across her screen that Hyojung can't help but notice. 

_sseungsseung just went live!_

On her laptop, Hyojung automatically clicks the Afreeca bookmark, until she remembers that she's mad at Seunghee and closes the tab before it even finishes loading. Then, because she's a maybe a masochist at heart, she reopens the tab.

The stream is only a few minutes old and Seunghee's numbers are still low. This is the time that Hyojung usually likes the best, before Seunghee has started her games and it feels more like hanging out with a friend than watching someone play video games on a computer screen. Seunghee makes small talk with some of her regulars, asking someone named _subak01_ about their exam, then talking to another viewer about their cat. She's wearing a pink sweater that brings out the warm flush in her cheeks.

Hyojung tries to return her attention back to her homework as Seunghee queues up for a game. She has sample lesson plans due that she's been putting off all week while she was busy playing LoL.

Seunghee is quiet for a minute. When she speaks again, Hyojung looks up reflexively.

"'Unnie, you seem sad, is everything okay?'" Seunghee reads off. She smiles at the camera and Hyojung knows her well enough to recognize the strain. Hyojung frowns at her computer. 

"I'm okay," Seunghee answers. "I got into a fight with a friend last night, so I'm just a little sad. But I'll still play my best!"

Hyojung watches Seunghee navigate to the loot screen, mindlessly clicking on skin shards. The chat is buzzing about the fight and Hyojung feels faintly nauseous. 

"'Noona, tell your friend that they hurt your feelings,'" Seunghee reads aloud, then she shakes her head. "No, it was me who hurt her feelings. I was kind of an asshole." 

Seunghee covers her mouth with one hand, laughing a little. She doesn't usually curse on her streams. Hyojung's hands move to the keyboard, her cursor hovering over the chat box.

"'What happened?' She was doing me a favor and I didn't show her enough appreciation," Seunghee says. "But we're not here to talk about me being a bad friend, huh? What did you guys think about the new skins?"

Hyojung stands up so abruptly that her half-empty coffee cup wobbles, threatening to spill onto her laptop. She shoves her laptop and the scraps of notebook paper into her backpack, not even bothering to put on her jacket and scarf before she's out of the door.

 

 

Seunghee is out of breath when she answers her door. "I'm in the middle of a-" she starts to say, but stops when she sees Hyojung.

"Can I come in?" Hyojung asks, even as she's already stepping through the doorway, slipping off her sneakers. "Actually, I'm coming in."

"I'm streaming right now," Seunghee says. She takes a step backwards, tugging the sleeves of her sweater down over her fingertips. Her expression is somewhere between surprised and uncomfortable, like a child who's just been caught taking an extra cookie out of the jar. 

Hyojung drops her backpack. Her skin is cold but she's sweating from exertion. "I know, I was watching. How come you'll say those things to strangers but you wouldn't say you were wrong to me?" 

"Have you even checked your phone today?" Seunghee says. "Wait, you were watching?"

"That's not the point," Hyojung says, but the some of the frenzied desire to talk it out right _now_ that had propelled her across campus to confront Seunghee in person is fading, caught off-guard. She hadn't meant to admit that she'd been watching. "What about my phone?"

Seunghee turns and runs back into her bedroom without saying anything, slippered feet shuffling against the floor. When she reappears in the doorway of her room, she's holding her phone. 

"Hyojung unnie," Seunghee reads off her screen. "I want to apologize for the things I said to you. I was angry and I was being unfair to you. I appreciate you taking the time to practice even though we volun-told you to do it. Please forgive me. Sad emoji." Seunghee punctuates the end of her monologue with an exaggerated frown which Hyojung assumes is supposed to the emoji. 

"Oh," Hyojung says. She sits on the floor, feeling fully deflated now. 

After a moment, Seunghee joins her. She sits butterfly style, her knee touching Hyojung's. "It's funny, you know? I thought that it would be fun, the two of us playing together."

"Yewon says LoL is toxic."

"Not just the playing, but getting to spend time with you. I don't think I've ever spent this much time alone with you and I thought." Seunghee stretches her legs out, reaching for her toes. Even while sitting, she's constantly in motion. "I thought that it was a good excuse to be alone with you."

"Oh," Hyojung says again. 

"Anyway, I'm sorry for taking my frustration out on you." 

Hyojung thinks about their conversation on the bus ride home from the hospital. Seunghee was telling her more about supports, how sometimes people underestimate the role. "You're not going to start off playing like this, so don't think we'll expect it from you," she'd said, "but the best supports? They're not passive. They're starting the fights, they're the one initiating. Supports can be way more badass than people give them credit for." It was meant to be a pep talk or something, but it'd only served to make Hyojung more queasy. 

She reaches out, sliding her hand over Seunghee's knee. No more being passive. "What did you mean? That it was a good excuse to be alone with me?" 

Seunghee looks down at Hyojung's hand then back up at her. "I meant that I like y-"

This, Hyojung thinks, cutting Seunghee off with a kiss, is initiation. Seunghee makes a shocked noise that vibrates against Hyojung's mouth, but she's quick on the follow-up, one hand coming up to curve around Hyojung's cheek while she presses in, lips parting. The angle of their bodies is weird and Hyojung is losing feeling in one of her hands. She doesn't really care.

At some point, they end up horizontal on the floor, Hyojung on her back and Seunghee leaned over her. Seunghee is kissing Hyojung open-mouthed and eager. Hyojung's fingers have dipped under the Hem of Seunghee's sweater to rest against the soft skin of her stomach, pinky hooking into Seunghee's waistband. This is, naturally, how the other Seunghee finds them.

"My eyes," Oh Seunghee shrieks from the doorway.

"My stream!" Seunghee shouts, scrambling to her feet and leaving Hyojung on the floor with her t-shirt rucked up.

Oh Seunghee slowly lowers her hand from in front of her face. "Oh, hello Hyojung unnie."

 

 

With three days left to practice, Hyojung joins Oh My Girl's scrims again. "You can't yell at me this time," Hyojung warns Seunghee as she settles into the gaming chair, stretching her wrists to warm them up. 

"Or," Seunghee says, blinking sweetly at Hyojung. "Since I'm your girlfriend now, I can yell at you more and you'll think I'm cute anyway."

Hyojung gets a solid five seconds of ticking in before Seunghee cries out, "Okay! Okay! I promise I won't take my frustration out on you!" 

They're playing against a bunch of freshmen that call themselves Weki Meki. Not the fiercest of opponents, but apparently Mihyun is taking whatever scrims she can get. "I don't really know much about how they play," she warns them. "So if someone locks in, like, Master Yi, I'm sorry in advance." 

As far as Hyojung can tell, the first champion select is normal. Seunghee locks in Lucian and chooses his Heartseeker skin, which she enthusiastically points out to Hyojung, wiggling her eyebrows. Her zeal is infectious and Hyojung forgets to be nervous for a moment, feeling an unconscious smile stretching across her face. 

They win the first two games and lose the third, but the fourth one is a stomp in their favor and that makes up for it. Hyojung even gets a kill in the middle of a teamfight with a conveniently timed auto attack. The morale boost, however, is short lived. The next day they scrim against the first seed team, Twice, and get their asses handed to them in three games straight. If Hyojung were playing for fun, she'd consider uninstalling the game at this point.

As the post-game lobby loads, Seunghee sinks back against her chair. "Well, I expected that."

"I'm sorry," Hyojung says.

"Don't be," Seunghee says. She looks up to the ceiling and extends her arms out, her fingers curling into something like a meditation pose. "I'm trying to become enlightened about this. Move beyond my earthly desires to win at video games." 

"So, that sucked huh?" 

Seunghee draws her arms back in at once, slapping one hand down against her desk. "They were so good, I hate them. I know she's your friend, but would you mind if I temporarily took out Jihyo?" 

Hyojung scoots her chair over until she's close enough to rest her head on Seunghee's shoulder. "Wouldn't it be better to incapacitate someone from Lovelyz? Not that I'm saying we should, but since we're playing them and all." 

"Yeah, but they're not going to win the whole thing anyway and that's what really matters."

"Hey," Hyojung says. "You're a winner in my heart." 

And really, that's all that matters.

 

 

The playoffs are not _really_ playoffs. Basically the only people who care about watching a bunch of girls play LoL are the girls actually in the school's league and whatever friends or significant others get conned into coming along. The prize for winning is a 100,000 won voucher for a local BBQ restaurant, pooled from the fee for joining the LoL association. Still, the team captains have tried their best to give the first day of games some sense of legitimacy and hype. There's a banner hanging up in the computer lab that says _2018 Ewha Intramural LoL Association Finals_ with chibi champions on either side for decoration.

Yewon is kind enough to bring donuts and coffee for the whole team and they corral around a desk in a classroom to eat them. Hyojung can hear the Lovelyz girls next door, an obnoxious laugh that has to belong to Mijoo carrying through the empty halls. 

"As the eldest, you should make a speech," Jiho says around a mouthful of jelly donut. "We could use a pep talk."

Hyojung shakes her head. "Mihyun is the captain, ask her," she tries to say, but Seunghee is already tapping on her coffee cup with a pen and chanting _speech! speech!_ "I hate you all. But I guess let's just go out onto the rift and give it our best shot. Thank you for putting up with me."

"We should be thanking you. You've worked hard," Yoobin says, sniffing. Knowing her, it is possible she might be about to cry. 

Yoobin wraps her arms around Hyojung's waist, then Mihyun and Jiho both join in, squeezing Hyojung so hard that it's nearly painful. She can feel Yewon's cast against her back and smell Seunghee's shampoo as they all envelop her in a group hug. 

"Are you guys hugging without me?" Shiah's voice rings out. Hyojung pokes her head out of the hug to see Shiah shrugging off her backpack in the doorway. She's wearing workout clothes, her hair thrown up into a messy bun like she's just come from practice. "Sorry I'm late." 

"Unnie!" Yewon shouts. "You're here!"

"We're saved," says Mihyun. 

Hyojung wrestles back out of the team's grip. "Wait, what's going on?"

"Emergency seventh sub," Seunghee says with a sly grin. "Not to shit on the effort you've made over the last week and a half but-"

"Oh my god," Hyojung says, her entire body sagging with relief down into Seunghee's arms. "Oh thank god. You don't know how happy I am." 

"Is now a bad time to remind you guys that I haven't played LoL in at least a month?" 

"You haven't seen me play," Hyojung points out.

So, Shiah's not much better, but at least she doesn't die if an enemy champion looks at her the wrong way. It's a little different being on the other side of the computer after a week and a half, seeing the game from the spectator's perspective. Things make sense in a way they never have before, which is why Hyojung knows how badly Oh My Girl is losing in their fifth game of the series and how monumental it is when Mihyun steals baron from Jisoo and the team turns it into an ace. 

Hyojung shouts so loudly that Yewon has to tug on her arm to get her to sit back down, but they're both right back up out of their seats again when Oh My Girl takes down Lovelyz's nexus. 

It isn't until Hyojung has kissed Seunghee, right there with the cord of her headset still attached to the computer, that she realizes, in the midst of trying to get ready for the playoffs, they hadn't actually told anyone about their relationship yet. A half dozen sets of eyes are trained on them at once. Yewon and Yoobin both shriek. 

"I played the best, where's my kiss?" Jiho asks.

Seunghee makes a cross with her arms in front of Hyojung. "Hands off, that's my girlfriend you're talking to."

☼

**Author's Note:**

> thank you r for looking over this and e for encouraging me to finish it x_x ♥ 
> 
> notes:  
> \- suspend ALL UR DISBELIEF  
> \- [playoff teams and roles](https://i.imgur.com/8xvYSXh.png)


End file.
